Kirrweiler, a village with a population of approximately 1,500 in 1957 is located in the Rhenish Palatinate, Germany, near Neustadt a.d.W. Religious afflilation is mostly Catholic. It is here, according to Hutterian tradition, that two Hutterian Brethren, Hans Arbeiter and Heinrich Schuster, lay in prison 29 weeks in 1568. "Thus at Kirweiler, Arbeiter was put into a dark dungeon, where one is deprived of the light of day, and Heinrich into the common prison." This prison was evidently the Hambach castle (formerly known as the Kastenburg, and later know as the Maxburg). The fortress, which belonged to the see of Speyer until 1789, was destroyed in the Peasants' War and rebuilt by feudal service in 1525, was seriously damaged by Albrecht Alcibiades of Brandenburg, and in the Thirty Years' War demolished.